Closing Event: In-conversation with Maryam Tafakory, Zara Joan Miller and Elhum Shakerifar

Maryam Tafakory [b. Shiraz, Iran] is an artist filmmaker whose textual and filmic collages interweave poetry, documentary, archival, and found material. Screenings of her work include MoMA, Cannes, Locarno, ICA, M HKA, and FICUNAM, amongst others. She has won awards such as the Best Experimental Short at the 70th MIFF, Gold Hugo Award at the 58th Chicago International Festival, Tiger Short Award at the 51st IFFR, and Barbara Hammer Feminist Award at the 60th AAFF. www.maryamtafakory.com

Zara Joan Miller is a British/Iranian artist and author of poetry collection BLUE MONDAY (JOAN Publishing, 2022). She works across moving image, performance and print – often playing with movement and sound as a way of reimagining a body’s rhythm.

Her critical writings on film and art have appeared in Another Gaze, British Journal of Photography, Autograph Gallery and Flash Art.

Elhum Shakerifar is a BAFTA-nominated producer, curator, writer and translator working through London-based company Hakawati (‘storyteller’ in Arabic). Her credits include A Syrian Love Story (2015, Sean McAllister), ISLAND (2018, Steven Eastwood) and Even When I Fall (2017, Sky Neal & Dara McLarnon). Elhum was MENA/Iran programme advisor for London Film Festival for 7 years until 2021, and has curated for Shubbak, Barbican and Birds-Eye-View. She has taught documentary at Berlin Freie and UCL as well as on programmes from Georgia to Lebanon via Egypt and Tunisia. Elhum was recipient of a BFI Vision Award in 2016, she was awarded the Women in Film & TV BBC Factual Award in 2017. www.hakawati.co.uk